A fire tore through a dormitory at a girls' secondary school in a town in Kenya's Rift Valley overnight, killing at least 16 students, the government said Thursday.
The fire broke out just after midnight at the Utumishi Girls' Academy Senior School in Gilgil in west-central Kenya and burned for more than two hours, Education Minister Julius Migos told reporters.
He added 79 other students were injured, although 71 of them had already been discharged from the hospital. Students at the school are aged between 15 and 18 years.
"Investigations are ongoing, but the ... cause of the fire is not yet identified," Migos said.
Speaking to reporters at the school, Interior Minister Kipchumba Murkomen urged people not to speculate on the cause of the fire.
However, multiple survivors told first responders that a student had lit a mattress with a match, said one first responder, who asked not to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media.
They did not know what the student's motive might have been.
Doors on the second floor where the fire started were initially locked, and some students died while jumping out of the windows, the first responder added.
The fire broke window panes and left the walls of the school stained with smoke.
Fires are common at Kenyan schools, with more than 100 recorded in 2024, according to the government.
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